Jim Timmermann: Partisan primaries give us a hollow middle

Monday

Nov 15, 2010 at 12:01 AMNov 15, 2010 at 3:18 PM

Unfortunately, too many people see “moderate” as a synonym for “wishy-washy.” But moderates can and do take strong stands — they just don’t lock themselves into ideological boxes or automatically reject ideas that come from another party.

Jim Timmermann

Many people are looking at the Nov. 2 midterm elections as a major right turn in American politics. Certainly, a lot of right wing candidates backed by tea party activists were elected. Indeed, the rise and success of the tea party may be the news story of the year in America 2010.

However, I think the elections actually support my assertion that most Americans prefer more moderate candidates, and the partisan primary system that prevails in this country doesn’t give voters the choices they want.

In addition to winning control of the House of Representatives, Republicans may also have taken control of the Senate if they had nominated candidates who were a bit more to the center or, in some cases (think Christine O’Donnell), slightly less wacky.

In a year of widespread anti-Democratic anger, the GOP stood to win the Senate seats in Nevada, Delaware and Colorado, but voters in those states couldn’t stomach the options produced in the Republican primary. (In a fourth race, the tea party-backed GOP nominee in Alaska stands to lose not to a Democrat, but to the incumbent establishment Republican, who ran as a write-in candidate, assuming enough voters spelled “Murkowski” correctly.)

The best example is Nevada, where the incumbent Democratic senator, Harry Reid, is widely despised. Reid is too liberal for his state and by all rights should have been voted out. However, the Republicans nominated Sharron Angle, whose statements seemed to support armed insurrection as a cure for America’s ill and who apparently believes Dearborn, Mich., is governed by Shariah law. Faced with a senator who was out of touch and a potential replacement they saw as an embarrassment to the state, Nevadans reluctantly stuck with the incumbent.

The tendency of partisan primaries to produce candidates further to the right or left for the majority of the electorate is nothing new or unique to one or two states. As long as the candidates in general elections are determined in party primaries, party activists — who tend to be more liberal or conservative than the general population — will dominate the decision-making process.

But if we let primary voters select candidates of either party (or no party at all) in one primary open to all, we would encourage more candidates to move to the center. That’s where party nominees typically try to position themselves after general elections, though those efforts often have little credibility, given their primary campaign rhetoric.

Moderates are frowned upon by the true believers and seldom make it through the primaries, if they bother to run in the first place. Michigan Gov.-elect Rick Snyder only won the Republican primary in August because four conservative rivals split the right wing vote, and Michigan’s open primary system allowed people who identify themselves as Democrats and independents to vote for him. (Snyder’s wealth, which meant he didn’t have to turn to traditional GOP power blocs for financial support, didn’t hurt either.)

The other example I’ve used before is Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. Lieberman couldn’t win either the Republican or Democratic primary in his state, but Connecticut voters are happy to elect him as an independent.

Opening the door to more moderate candidates doesn’t mean that liberals or conservatives would never be elected. In Florida, the tea party-backed Republican, Marco Rubio, easily beat a more centrist Republican running as an independent and the Democratic nominee in the Senate race. What’s important is that Floridians had a choice that few voters get.

Unfortunately, too many people see “moderate” as a synonym for “wishy-washy.” But moderates can and do take strong stands — they just don’t lock themselves into ideological boxes or automatically reject ideas that come from another party. I firmly believe that most Americans live in the political middle, but won’t be able to vote their real preferences until we develop a viable third party or end the liberal-conservative polarity by making all primary elections non-partisan.